


Entangled and entwined

by ellamason



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gardening, M/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9621314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellamason/pseuds/ellamason
Summary: There's no reason to stare at Valjean anymore, but Javert still can't look away.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss M (missm)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/gifts).



> This doesn't fit any specific prompt but contains canon-era one-sided obsessiveness, a post-Seine Javert who's committed to self-improvement and a lot of meaningful staring while surrounded by nature.

Valjean is on his knees in the grass, his hands and forearms stained with soil and dew. His shirt is damp with the afternoon’s work in the sunshine. It clings To his broad back and shifts as he reaches forward to tend to a patch of delicate yellow flowers, and Javert cannot tear his eyes away.

Javert, for his part, has finally accepted his limitations in the face of temptation. His book lies splayed-open and face-down in the grass beside his chair. The story is not a bad one, but it can’t compete with the picture Valjean makes. Not so long ago, Javert thinks, when Valjean would never have dared to bare his back to Javert. Now Valjean’s shoulders are loose and his feet are bare, the calloused soles turned upward and bathed in afternoon sunlight.

How would Valjean react if he crossed the grass and came to kneel behind him? Those few tempting steps seem to stretch for a thousand miles. But the desire has hooked into his chest. He imagines settling behind Valjean and tracing an admiring hand over the planes of that back, perhaps giving back a little of the comfort Valjean offered him so easily.

It was not so easy, he reminds himself again. Nothing Valjean has given him has come without a price. Even now that the worst is over, he still repays Valjean’s trust and strength with greedy eyes and unworthy thoughts. If Javert were truly honest, he would cross the garden and press his lips to that bent and powerful back. But Javert is under no illusions, so instead he observes.

He has, of course, given Valjean no reason to suspect his intentions. Javert is careful to school his expression when Valjean arrives for breakfast in his shirtsleeves with his hair in disarray or when he graces Javert with one of his rare but sincere smiles. As far as Valjean is concerned, Javert is a dutiful student and a reliable house guest. Perhaps Valjean, in his innocence, even considers him a friend.

Javert is a poor friend. Valjean does not know that when the shirt clings to his back, it sends Javert’s mind hurtling back to his wretched apartment in Montreuil. Cold, vicious nights spent eking out the last few inches of his last candles and poring over reports from Toulon. Did the drag of a leg constitute evidence? Did prisoner 24601 exhibit any particular involuntary reactions that could be drawn out in conversation? Would the scars of a lash show through a white shirt if the mayor could be persuaded to remove his waistcoat?

Valjean may have some idea that his existence had confounded Javert, that he’d been forced to question the truth of his memories and the evidence before his eyes over and over again, but he cannot understand the cruel, physical truth of all the things Javert has wanted over the years. The worst nights had left Javert with nothing but a frustration that pulsed through every part of him. He had greeted more than one sunrise half convinced of his theory and half certain he’d been driven mad by nothing more than a pair of strong hands and a peasant’s tan.

How could he have understood? Valjean was and is innocent and guilty at once. Athief and a liar and a fraudulent official and an insurgent, yes, but good nonetheless. And an innocent in every sense of the word. No one has wanted him in all of his years -- or at least, no one has had their way with him. On the most shameful nights, when Javert had dared to let his mind wander, he had imagined M. Madeleine’s facade falling away to expose the brutal assurance and skilled hands of a man who spent his youth in the bagne.

His mind still strays on occasion. But what is there to imagine now? A clean, crisp page, a reserve of untapped strength and a well of trust that Javert does not deserve.

Valjean shifts on his knees, turning his attention to an overgrown patch of wildflowers. They have no place in a well-managed garden, of course. And of course Valjean cultivates them anyway. Javert has long since given up trying to lecture him on the matter.

Valjean has always been fond of things that survive in the wild, in spite of all order. Even in Montreuil, he took regular walks through the fields and woods surrounding the town. Javert followed him once, knowing even as he stepped into the fields that he had no excuse to do so. He could not justify his suspicions or even explain his reasoning. Still he was infuriated by the mud that clung to the mayor’s boots in the evenings. He could not abide the sight of the gun that Madeleine carried without apology. And so Javert set out behind him.

The fields were wide open and the only sounds were those of the wind and the chattering creatures at his feet. There was no way to keep cover so he did not bother to hide. He strode a few feet behind Madeleine, tracking him across warm and dusty fields. Beyond the walls of the town, his focus narrowed until the hulking figure ahead seemed less like a mayor and more like a poacher. Javert himself felt less of a guardian than a beast bred to hunt.

Valjean’s steps sped at first and then, when it became clear he could not shake Javert off, he slowed. He glanced over his shoulder occasionally but did not acknowledge Javert. His arms were stiff and careful as he hefted his gun to take aim at a few birds. Those few shots rang through Javert’s centre like a fatal warning, but the facts of the matter amounted to nothing. He returned to the town no more certain than when he had left.

But he had persisted. The next time, Javert left the mayor enough time to cross the fields before he pursued him into the woods beyond. Under the shade of trees and branches, it was easier to track the slow-moving figure through the darkness. The mayor picked his way through the thickening undergrowth, unaware that Javert was at his heels, his had tucked under his arm.

He would not have been easy to overpower, but the darkness left him at a disadvantage. Javert watched from the shadows, trying to determine what angle would knock him off his footing. If he could wrestle the brute to the floor or shove him against a tree, it could be his best chance of extracting a confession.

Instead he watched, as he watches now, and Valjean pressed deeper into the woods. What path Valjean had followed into this dark corner, he had long since strayed. Now every step drove Javert’s boot into a patch of crunching, tearing overgrowth. Bramble bushes tore at his coat and trousers as he passed. Sleeping animals were stirred and scattered beneath his boots. And then Valjean turned a corner and there was light.

Peering around the tree, Javert watched Valjean step into a clearing. It was no less overgrown than the rest of the woods, but the trees parted above him and light streamed down. And before Javert’s widening eyes, he laid his gun down before him and went to his knees.

Javert froze in discomfort. Valjean’s eyes had fallen closed. A terrifying serenity settled upon him. His breaths slowed, and for a moment Javert was drawn into his rhythm, the unexpected calm of his prey falling also on the hunter. He crouched behind the tree, inhaling in slow sympathy with Valjean. The powerful body shifted into something more quiet and perplexing as those powerful shoulders became slack and those empty hands rest unclenched on his thighs.

The sight startled Javert out of his calm and jolted him into indecision. The gun lay less than a foot away from where he was hidden. It would be all too easy to step out of his hiding place and snatch it up. It would take only a few steps. Once the gun was in his hands, there would be no more questions. If the mayor was truly innocent, he would cooperate, and if he was not, he would know there was no escape.

It was dangerous, but it would solve the problem once and for all. And how could this not be his man? The limp and the history condemned him. Even now his lips were moving in what was surely a mockery of prayer. Why bother to put on such a performance alone in the woods?

Unless he didn’t believe he was alone. Javert’s stomach clenched. Of course a criminal of Valjean’s skill would know when he was being tracked. His senses returned in a rush. He took a hasty step backwards. And then another, certain only that he had strayed too far from the path. Was he leaving the pious idiot of a mayor to his prayers or the dangerous criminal alone with his gun? It did not matter, there were no answers in this dark undergrowth. His pounding heartbeat echoed in his ears as he pushed his way through tearing brambles and stinging weeds. He did not look back.

Still, the mayor never looked at him askance afterwards. If he knew he had been watched, Javert told himself, he had no cause for complaint. The woodland belonged to nobody and neither of them had been trespassing.

And still he cannot help but stare. Their relationship is less complicated now that the lies and animosity have fallen away. But Javert still carries some secrets with him: For one thing, he is now forced to accept that he is staring for no better reason than the pleasure of what he sees. Valjean’s warm and weathered skin, his hair shining in the light, and his arms still lean and powerful. What used to be a gnawing desire to capture and devour has grown into an honest hunger.

If he were only more certain Valjean would accept it, he would fall on his knees and press himself to Valjean’s back. He would kiss the salt from his neck and reach forward to twine their hands together. He would hold Valjean in his grasp once and for all and he would be grateful to do so. But there is no certainty anymore, he thinks with irritation. No ironclad law between them, nothing irrevocable to cling to. Only the yawning pit of wanting without knowing.

The small apple tree Valjean is tending will blossom soon after months of patient care and pruning. Until the accident, Javert had never given such things a second thought. He would have died on the night of the barricades without knowing a thing about apple trees, without seeing this one come to fruit. It would not have troubled him at the time, but now he is astonished by the life that Valjean can coax from the most reluctant places.

“Javert,” Valjean’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “Come over here and help me with this, will you?”

He moves without thinking, crossing the garden in an instant. He settles himself on his knees beside Valjean, wincing at the damp grass beneath him. “I was _trying_  to read, you know,” he says with what he hopes is some dignity.

Valjean half turns to look him in the eye and Javert blanches under the scrutiny. He has never lied well, and while he has become used to hiding the depths of his feelings from Valjean, he is hardly an expert in that regard either. He imagines the truth written plainly across his face. It is no worse than he deserves.

Whatever Valjean sees, he says nothing. Instead he smiles and covers Javert’s thigh with a warm palm.

“Then I will be sure to use your time well.”


End file.
